New bootcamps to support tech skills across the West Midlands

Birmingham-based tech training and talent placement provider TechTalent has announced a renewed partnership with West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) to provide fully funded skills bootcamps and tech courses across the region.

The business will be running a fully-funded cyber security course on 8 February and a software development course on 9 February as part of an initiative to help equip people with tech skills that can help boost their career prospects. The bootcamps will be funded with the help of WMCA’s £131m adult education budget and those who complete the software course will receive a BCS Foundation in Agile certification.

TechTalent will also be delivering further fully funded tech training courses across a range of tech disciplines as part of the initiative throughout the year, including data science and cyber security.

This latest initiative is part of TechTalent and WMCA’s continuing commitment to upskilling people across the West Midlands and follows the launch of a joint Digital Skills Academy scheme with IT services provider Version1 last year. The Digital Skills Academy scheme was supported with a £200,000 investment and guarantees 60 jobs with Version 1 for participants who successfully complete the course.

Overall, TechTalent has upskilled more than 600 learners from across the West Midlands over the past 12 months.

Janice Rae, CEO and founder at TechTalent, said: “As a business, we are passionate about championing the West Midlands’ growing tech sector and creating opportunities for people across the region to gain skills which can help them forge happy and successful careers in tech.”

As part of its work with WMCA, TechTalent is aiming to upskill individuals across the region and place them with leading tech employees through its recruit, train and deploy model. Through this model, TechTalent handles the entire administrative process of recruiting and training individuals before placing them with businesses.

This, in turn, helps reduce hiring risks for employers and provides them with scalable and on-demand tech professionals who are ready to be deployed onto projects from the word ‘go’. Working through its model, TechTalent has placed people with major tech employers including Meta, the UK Space Agency, Capgemini and Infosys.

Dr Fiona Aldridge, head of insight and intelligence at WMCA, said: “It’s vital that we support people across the West Midlands to develop skills that will help them navigate our rapidly evolving economy, build their career and enhance their earnings prospects and bootcamps are a great way of achieving this.”

TechTalent is an equal opportunities company and is fully committed to diversity and inclusion. 72 per cent of its academy students are of Black, Asian, or mixed Ethnic heritage, and 47 per cent identify as female. In addition to Birmingham, the business has offices in Bristol and London.

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily